14 DAY TRIAL // SGI recently announced that it has been selected by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), along with the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (met.no) to install a next generation SGI Altix ICE system built using Intel Xeon processors for improved weather forecasting in Norway and the adjacent seas.
The system will consist of 13 next-generation Altix ICE cabinets performing at over 275 teraflops, along with four SGI InfiniteStorage 16000 racks providing 1.2 petabytes of storage using the Lustre file system.
Intel's Xeon 5600-series processors that stand at the heart of the SGI machine are based on the company's Westmere-EP architecture and feature four or six processing cores and their operating frequency ranges between 1.86GHz and 3.33GHz.
In addition, the CPUs also support Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, than doubles the number of threads available, as well as Turbo Boost and AES-NI support, among others.
NTNU and met.no intend to use this new system to accelerate numerical weather predictions and to develop atmospheric and oceanographic models for improved weather forecasting for Norway and the adjacent seas.
"With this SGI technology collaboration, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute will be able to greatly improve their weather forecasting capabilities, as well as vastly accelerate time to insight for more standard applications common to HPC academia," said Rod Evans, vice president of SGI EMEA.
"The flexibility and scalability of this next generation solution also creates the foundation for an HPC system that can continue to grow without disruption to their service as their requirements change and expand," concluded the company's rep.
SGI hasn't stated when the new system is expected to go live, but it should be able to deliver up to 20 times the power of the previous machine used by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.